Vomitorium
by Kimchi
Summary: Tabitha wants to change her image...right? However, she runs into the roadblock of people being stupid. LanceTabby.
1. meh this isn't the last chapter

'Ello. I am kimchi, author of another fic that no one read, and even less reviewed. Tell you what. If you hate songfics like I do, if you want to comment on anything, or if you have also been ignored despite throwing yourself into writing something that you think that people would like or at least read, then for the love of god, review.  
  
Blah dee dee, I do not own da stuffs. I do not know why I wanted to do this fic since everyone is OOC. I just find the characters of XME quite malleable for warping into weird fanfiction worlds. I also like Lance/Tabitha couplings. I appear to be the only one who thinks this. *sigh*.so alone.  
  
There was nothing. Tabitha could not feel anything. It was one of those where any rush would do. Any feeling, any excitement, any commotion that could make her feel alive. There was nothing here to do. She leaned back all the way on her huge bed and stared at the ceiling. She closed her eyes and opened them again, watching yellow patterns dance across the white ceiling. This continued a while, until she decided to go downstairs to get a sugarhigh or something.  
  
Downstairs, however, there was no hyperactive Toad to help her with her quest for confections, nor a smirking Pietro to argue with, but an empty kitchen and an empty house. While wandering through silent rooms, she realized that everyone was doing something and she wasn't. Tabitha did not want to be left out. It was the frequency of this event and feeling happening that infuriated her the most.  
  
The next morning, Tabitha turned the gears in her head for a way to get a date or look available for a party at school. This was the last night she would ever be alone at the rotting Brotherhood house. Before all that, however, came breakfast.  
  
The peeling kitchen was home to a garbage-sucking Toad and Lance, to both of which she paid no attention. Tabby scoured the cabinets and other food- storing devices for a suitable breakfast, finally slamming the refrigerator door closed and grabbing a couple slices of bread from the counter. Some breakfast.  
  
Toad said something slang-filled and unintelligible about getting more money. Lance translated. Tabby stormed out, chewing angrily on the bread. Some morning. Great start for a hopefully image-changing day. Shower. Shower now.  
  
Wonderful, I've started thinking in moans and grunts. She thought, letting the comment sink without a trace into fantasies of being respected by the school body. The water was too cold. It splashed noisily around her feet and even more noisily into the drain. Door noise.  
  
Tabitha perked her ears to the outside. Did the door open? Was someone there? It's probably Pietro wanting a peep show. Again. One would think that a small, grenade-like object to the groin would stop that.  
  
She snaked a peek from around the edge of the curtain, then poked her head out all the way. Lance was standing in front of the mirror, brushing his teeth.  
  
"Out. Get out." She growled.  
  
"Almost done." He mumbled through bubbles.  
  
"I'm taking a shower." If Tabby were, indeed, a cat, her tail and other hairy features would surely have fluffed up to more than their average size.  
  
"Almost done." He wasn't even trying to look at her. That both relaxed and offended Tabby at the same time. She huffed and pulled the curtain into place, diving back behind it to wait until he left. He did, closing the door behind him.  
  
"By the way." Lance leaned in and gestured towards Tabby's pile of currently discarded clothes. "...I won the bet." Tabby's eyes widened. "You are a B cup."  
  
Tabitha grabbed a shampoo bottle and flung it at the closing door. An Image- changing day.. 


	2. Falling over in your chair is possible I...

Murg. I don't own the stuff, and I don't want to. Imagine all the stupid people telling me they don't own it when starting fanfictions.  
  
Sweet lady Heinz fifty-seven varieties! A pool? On my um, er, maturity?? No wonder none of them have girlfriends if they sit around betting on bra sizes.  
  
Tabitha still could not believe she made up the first exclamation (Ketchup? Dear god let me go back to grunts.) as she stomped through the double-doors at school.  
  
There were many cliques were circled up in the hallway, talking to each other. Tabitha had never noticed how everyone was so attached to their friends. That group, the ones with the weird-ass sweaters, they had all signed up for the same classes together. The way they were talking, it looked as if one of them would cry if they were separated. Tabitha slightly remembered seeing one of them, alone, and accidentally signed up for a separate P.E. class. She looked sulky.  
  
Weird; thought Tabitha. Why do they do that? It's like they need to be together.  
  
No one gets it until it's too late.  
  
Tabitha arrived at her first period class, ready for spending the period silently fuming in the corner. No help that Lance was in the same class.  
  
The teacher gave some plot-servicing assignment, making the kids split into partners and talk about.something. It's a plot device, okay?  
  
Lance edged closer to Tabitha's desk.  
  
"Angry?" Tabitha didn't answer.  
  
"You're angry." He didn't even look at her. He kept his head forward, staring boredly at the blackboard. He looked smug at his second remark. Tabitha felt her head explode.  
  
No one else approached Tabitha or Lance, so they ended up as partners for the project. Tabitha fell farther into the abyss of misery. Silence reigned between the two desks. Neither would speak.  
  
"Still angry?" He turned to her. She turned away. "C'mon. The wall isn't that interesting. What's wrong?"  
  
The obvious. Of course!  
  
"You looked." She said "at my bra." There is no way to tell you her intonation on the word bra. Lance looked away to keep her from seeing his smile. Tabitha vowed to kill him.  
  
Lance started nonchalantly working on the assignment. Whistling. He was whistling! Tabitha could see a large, gory mess explode from his head, as well as poisonous snakes being attached to certain body parts.  
  
"It's meant to be." she mumbled, smiling at the thought.  
  
"I'm sorry." Lance closed his eyes. "But it wouldn't work out between us."  
  
Tabitha's eye twitched involuntarily. Her head jerked to one side. Was it possible to have a stroke from anger? Brain vessels were popping, trying to keep her from throwing grenades around the classroom. She couldn't take it. She raised her hand, cupping it to create a bomb.  
  
"If you have a question, there's a packet of info up front." Lance pointed to the front of the room. That did it.  
  
Forgetting about mutant powers, Tabitha lunged from her desk, just going to beat the living hell out of him. What was wrong with him?  
  
Leaning forward towards his desk with her fists ready to punch, she stopped. She had forgotten to rise first, before moving. She was falling over. Lance wrapped his arms around her.  
  
"I'm sorry, but.it just won't work out." He shook his head.  
  
Tabitha pushed away and fell over the over side of her chair. 


	3. Short, but ever so umer adjective?

Woofums? Reviews?? I've never been so happy! Well, for my dearest Chibi Matoko's question (actually, I've never spoken to you before, I just like calling people dear)...it's a mystery. There's a part of me that needs to preach what I see of romance and society and how both are crumbling. Oh my god, that kitty is so cute!!! I must have it! Oh, she ran away. On with the show....  
  
Four hours later, at lunch, Tabitha's face was still a dangerous shade of crimson. The embarrassment of falling over in front of the whole class was bad enough, but having Lance, Mr. Mullet himself, hugging you! A mullet!!  
  
Tabitha could barely eat. The scene of everything laughing at her kept echoing around in her brain. Could you possibly blush yourself to death? How many other embarrassing ways to die could she possibly come close to? Death by tampon?  
  
Blob said something about eating. Why were his, Pietro's, and Toad's lines all so predictable. They barely had to be written down. She said no and passed him her plate. Well, Lance's lines were like that, too, but he was OOC in this fic. Now what was she thinking?  
  
She stood her elbows on the table with her face in her hands, just watching people. There was another clique. Why were they like that? Was she like that with her friends? She hoped not.  
  
No one is immune to it. Some just accept it.  
  
An arm wrapped itself around her shoulders.  
  
"Hello, darling." Lance tucked his chin into hers. Tabitha grabbed the nearest book and turned to him, beating him brutally about the head. Lance put his hands up.  
  
"I was kidding! Kidding!" He smiled despite himself. Tabitha stalled her attack enough to put the book down. He'll die later.  
  
"Why are you acting like...like Pietro!" This was quite the insult to Lance. Strangely, he didn't react.  
  
"Oh, you're just so vulnerable to love." What in the hell does that mean?  
"And..." His eyes were half-lidded. Seriousness passed through his face. "You look like you're noticing it too."  
  
Sweaters in the hallway. Everything was.....  
  
Tabitha looked up at him, her eyes widening. He smiled, looking just a little bit sad. He walked away.  
  
"Has Lance been acting a little bit strange lately?" She asked Blob. He said no.  
  
"So it's just around me..." Tabitha could think of a possibility for this, but she refused to accept it. Nothing could possibly ever become of her and a mullet. They don't even deserve names.  
  
But he's Lance. 


	4. complex

Bleeeeeeeeeeeeehhh. I don't own things. Give me money. Did you know Japan has sunflowers that play guitars? And you really can die from a tampon! I read it on a tampon box that had some really weird diagrams.  
  
That night, Tabitha sat in her room, sulking over the turnout of the day. No dates, no parties, and there weren't going to be any invitations after the chair incident and lunchroom assault on Lance. If beating him to death was a crime, then give her a baseball bat and lock her up.  
  
She sighed and got up off her bed, ambling towards the stairs. What he said at lunch kept going through her head. Why was he noticing all this now? All the people, and how they only talked to their friends. She needed sugar.  
  
Tabitha had momentarily forgotten that she lived with Lance, so when she saw him in the kitchen, eating cereal, she may have passed out from anger.  
  
"Angry?" he said. Now they were repeating themselves.  
  
"Pass the cereal." Tabitha's voice dripped with loathing. She got a bowl from the cupboard and sat down. He passed the cereal politely. She hated him for doing that.  
  
She poured Frooty Nooses into her bowl and watched him. He didn't say anything. Something inside Tabitha hurt where there should be no hurt. Hurt was bad. Mullet. Think of the mullet!  
  
And the hurt went away.  
  
"Um...." Tabitha put down her spoon. The anger was gone. "What did you mean, in the cafeteria?"  
  
He looked sad. "You've noticed the way the flocks group. The cliques. The groups where they stop becoming people."  
  
Tabitha's heart went "pang". What the hell was that?  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Do you realize how serious it is?" he asked.  
  
"People being friends? That's no big deal." She felt like she was lying. Thinking about the girls in the sweaters had kind of disgusted her.  
  
"It's not." It eluded Tabitha how you could look at someone sideways and from the front, but it seemed to be the only way to describe his look. "It's in everyone. I'm surprised you can see the patterns."  
  
Tabitha found no retort. He finished his cereal and left. She sat there a while, thinking. After a while, she dumped the rest of her Frooty Nooses into the sink.  
  
Pukeity goodness, asks the author? Yeah, it sucked. I've always had people tell em I'm a "great writer", but I think in order to have the half- ass but emphasized- by-everyone-else-being-stupid writing ability I have today, I sacrificed something else. I cannot talk to people. I die. I'm almost hilariously unpopular with most of the student body at my school. Trying to make friends is like plunging a knife into my stomach and trying not to have the onset organ bleed. I've lost touch with a friend of mine, and now he seems as unreachable as those really cool upperclassmen with all their coolness. If you can read this, maybe you're like me. Can you really understand this, or are you faking? Where aren't you faking? Maybe if we met, I would hate you. I think this author's note is longer than the story itself. You're ticking me off. If you don't mind, my inferiority/superiority/abandonment/ being a teenager complex is growing so much it hurts. I must brood, so leave me. 


	5. Num, cheesy!

How? What? Geez, there are people as weird as me. Maybe I'm normal and everyone else is the crazy ones. Have you noticed that having something that you bought online in the mail arrive is more satisfying that if you bought it in a store? Damn. Before I started doing this, (or rather, before I got reviews) I didn't feel real. I guess.praise makes me like this? MAD magazine is not funny. I don't see how people think it is. (I can hear people closing out of this fic in disgust.)  
  
Tabitha had managed to regain her ignorance. She barely remembered the life-changing, heart-wrenching, and perspective-changing talks she had with what's-his-name last night. She went to school in a good mood, full of confidence.  
  
Lance was in her first period class. She suddenly wanted death.  
  
She hated him. There was a flare of heat across her face; she lit up with anger. Lance didn't seem any different than normal. He always seemed smug and silent, but lately his presence was all it took to make Tabitha bubble over. Queasiness settled a little below her stomach. Was this real anger? He was the same; so the change was all in her.  
  
Lance paid her no mind, as if she weren't there. Like he did before the shower incident. There was regression in the story line, Tabitha could feel it. They spent the first part of class in silence, sitting in the back of the room, both appearing moody and rebellious. There was a break where partners were to -oh, shut up, it's another plot device. Expect a lot of those.  
  
"Are you thinking about it?" he didn't look at her.  
  
"It?" She replied.  
  
"Flocking." Smugness was replaced with melancholy, but he still seemed cool.  
  
"No. It doesn't exist. People just hang out with their friends."  
  
"It's more that that. They require the flocking; they need it. Without it, they feel left out when they really aren't." His eyes never left the front of the room. "It's a lie we tried to make true."  
  
Tabitha looked at him. For the first time, she felt a shiver all around her. Her heart ached for something unnamed. Lance looked like he didn't care.  
  
"I ." She began, but found nothing to relate with herself. She tried to begin again, but he raised his hand. The teacher excused him to the bathroom. He left, Tabitha sat there feeling stupid and hurting. She knew what she had to do.  
  
The flocking is the lie all of us believe in. The sheep are lost without each other. How dare someone try to shatter all of this, try to show only one of us, to isolate them once they know the truth, never to return to lovely stupidity. How could one or two stand against the herds of sheep and cattle and tell them it's silly? Why would he do this just for one?  
  
Tabitha knew what she had to do. She walked uncomfortably down the hallway, normal catlike motions jerky and foolish. Her weapon glinted silver in the hall lights.  
  
He was in the bathroom, staring in the mirror. There was some expression on his face, but it was too late for him to be repenting. He saw her, and took a step back in surprise. She advanced, swinging the scissors. She bent his head back, his eyes opened with surprise. No blood spilt to the floor, she was good. She let go, he stood up straight.  
  
"What are we gonna do?" She looked at the floor. "We can't undo all of the flocking."  
  
He brushed his shoulders off. The remains of his mullet fell to the floor. He stared in amazement at his socially acceptable hair. He looked similar, just with short in the back. He laughed.  
  
"Was this what was annoying you?" He pointed to the back of his head.  
  
"Sort of." She smiled. They both started laughing. "But still, what do we do?"  
  
"Whatever we can." He looked at her. Her heart was laced with melancholy and excitement. There was a happy feeling and a sad feeling all around her, crushing certain organs.  
  
"Are you okay?" he stepped closer. She looked up. She knew.  
  
"Yeah." There were so many things she could do and she wanted so much to do. It hurt so much.  
  
"Let's go back to class." Was all she got out. He smiled.  
  
They did leave the bathroom, Tabitha's heart beat so fast, but she  
managed to say it.  
  
"We-we have to do this." She looked down at the floor. The scissors  
lay among his old hair. "Can-can we...do it...together?" She glanced  
up under her bangs. He didn't understand what she was saying. Before  
she knew what she was doing, she grabbed his hand. She didn't know  
what to do with it. She just held it. He got the drift. For some  
reason, they both looked at his strands of hair on the tile floor.  
They laughed.  
  
I'm 13 years old. Should I be preaching about love when I have had  
almost no experience in it? Should any of us preach about love? About  
acceptance? What have any of us to speak for? Why do we try to say  
these things when we really know how worthless it is? We all try to  
find some type of deep thought to make us feel like we have some sort  
of meaning. Too often we misconceive tragedy as deep thought and  
meaning, so depression and sadness are seen as complexity. What have  
any of us to say that is not a lie?  
  
Y'know, I really wanted to have some sort of juicy, cheesy kiss scene in this, and I can't say I know why. Ugh. "Kiss" and "cheese" should never be in the same sentence. 


End file.
